


Pre/Post/Mid-Series Ficlets

by shykia1029



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Aaron Echolls sucks, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Child Abuse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-27 06:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20041345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shykia1029/pseuds/shykia1029
Summary: ...in no particular order or focus





	1. Logan

When they first started, Logan tried to avoid the beatings. 

He tried to behave, fight his natural inclination to talk back, get along with Trina, not spill food in the kitchen. 

But one day, out of the blue, it hits him: there will always be another. And another. And another. If he goes too long without getting punished his father will find a reason to punish him and reset the timer. 

Then he realizes: _he_ can reset the timer. 

He can fuck up anytime he wants and make the next beating happen and then, for a little while, if he doesn’t do anything too bad, he’s safe. 

If he behaves perfectly for longer streaks, eventually Aaron gets antsy and a snide remark at the dinner table is enough to set him off. 

> _If a movie star needs to hit a kid to make himself feel like a man an average of X times a week with an average of Y degrees of brutality, what is the optimum average time frame between fuck ups and severity of fuck ups for his son to commit to fulfill this need without being beaten to actual death? Answer in terms of X and Y. Show your work._  


His Algebra teacher always did say he would find a real-life application for the subject one day.

  


So sometimes when he’s already having a shitty day and he doesn’t have plans the next day so he can spend it shirtless and on his stomach in bed anyway, he just goes for it. He throws a plate or flips off a paparazzo or drops a bottle he steals from the liquor cabinet so it shatters on the living room floor.

Some days, usually when he has plans to go surfing the next, he hides in his room and tiptoes around every subject. Fresh welts and saltwater are a terrible mix. 

He has it down to an art form. 

The belt comes down on his back and part of him is laughing because this is making Aaron feel like a man, but he has no idea that it’s only happening because Logan is making it happen. 

  


Sometimes he turns it into a game. It’s been too long and the air is thick with tension so he decides to find the most minor possible offense that will set Aaron off, give him the flimsiest excuse possible and see if that’s enough for him to justify himself.

They open Christmas presents as a family live on this stupid TV show that he guesses is supposed to be heartwarming or something. 

Aaron gives Logan a charitable donation to some group that’s trying to cure AIDS or malaria or something in Zimbabwe because _the whole family is deeply passionate about helping the less fortunate. _

Logan gives Aaron a belt. 

A nice one, too. Versace. Fine leather. Custom-monogrammed buckle.

He’d even cleared the gift with a representative from the show like they were told to do. There was no reason for the representative to say no. Nobody outside of their family would understand the significance. 

Aaron opens the present and his expression freezes for just a second before he schools it into a tight smile. Trina coos over the workmanship and Logan smiles back so his father knows that yes, he’s doing exactly what Aaron suspects he is. 

The custom-monogrammed buckle hurts like a bitch. 

  


Sometimes the game goes the other way. He makes it his mission to commit the biggest fuckup possible because it’s going to happen soon and if it’s going to happen soon anyway he’s going to make sure he’s at least earned it. 

He leaves a half-empty bottle of Jack on the floor of the Corvette. 

(He doesn’t even drive the car, just chugs from the bottle before planting it.)

He goes on a trip to Tijuana the night of Aaron’s birthday party. 

(“Charitable donations in lieu of gifts, please.”)

He throws one of his father’s Golden Globe trophies through a paparazzo’s car window. 

(That one had actually been really fun.)

The possibilities are endless.

  


What’s really annoying is when it isn’t in his control at all, like when he knocks into a table and shatters a vase even though he’s completely sober. 

Or when Veronica fucking Mars plants a bong in his locker. 

Because then the beating isn’t happening because Logan made it happen, it’s happening because an uppity bitch he used to care about for some reason decided it would be fun to screw around with his life. 

For that one he also loses his car. That’s also really, really fucking annoying.

  


The night he tricks his father into either donating half a million dollars to a food bank or backing out and looking like the world’s biggest douchebag, he thinks that maybe with that on top of the bum fights he went too far this time. 

Because Aaron hits and hits and right around the time Logan expects him to finish up he doesn’t. 

He just keeps going. 

He keeps going and Logan can usually hold back the cries but this time he fails and he collapses to the floor and thinks that has to be it, surely now his dad feels like he’s won. 

He keeps going. 

Logan stares at the floor and thinks _Holy shit. This time he’s actually going to do it. He’s finally going to kill me. I guess I always knew this would happen someday. _

He doesn’t, though. Eventually, he stops, and Logan is pretty sure he only did because his arm got too tired. 

Aaron drops the belt next to where Logan can’t lift his head from the floor and stalks out. 

It takes twenty minutes for Logan to get himself up. He stumbles back to the closet and hangs the belt back up, then opens the hat box where his mother keeps one of the stashes of Percocet they pretend he doesn’t know about. He takes the whole bottle. 

He decides it’s a whiskey kind of night and lies down on his stomach, spilling the bottle out on his comforter in front of him. He knocks back two and while he waits for them to kick in he counts out the rest. 

> _If a movie star is inevitably going to beat a kid to death sometime in the next X years, when is the optimum time for the kid to accept that and get it over with himself, and what is the optimum ratio of Percocet to Crown Royal to make that death as peaceful and painless as possible? Answer in terms of X. Show your work. _

He doesn’t do it. He takes just enough to knock him out for the night. 

The headline “Aaron Echolls' Son, Seventeen, Dies of Overdose. Family Devastated.” is pretty lame. 

Now, “Aaron Echolls' Son Found Beaten to Death, Action Star Questioned as Person of Interest in Investigation.” That has a nice ring to it. 

He wonders if Veronica Mars would solve his murder. He wonders if she would care enough to try. Hating her doesn't mean he can't admit that she has a better chance than the Sheriff at succeeding.

  


Dick shows up with some pot and suggests they take it down to the beach and get high in the Xterra, maybe find some chicks to share it with. 

Logan suggests they smoke it in his pool house. He doesn’t turn the fans on or open the doors after and he leaves the roach on the floor. 

“Dude,” Duncan says. “You don’t have to do this.” 

Logan knows Duncan means well but he will never understand that Logan absolutely does have to do this. 


	2. Veronica

It’s late, late enough that Veronica’s parents are fast asleep, but she’s still awake. She has a Chemistry test in the morning that she needs to cram for. 

Lilly had tried to drag her to a frat party she’d heard about at Hearst and upon Veronica’s refusal had sighed, “You’re no fun, Veronica Mars. I guess I’ll just have to find company there.”

So Veronica’s been spending the evening studying and ignoring texts from Lilly about how much fun she’s missing when her ringtone starts playing and she realizes that she’s now getting a call. 

She picks up the phone and says, “Lilly, can we just talk tomorrow? I really need to-“

“Veronica Mars,” a voice says in a sing-song and she blinks and checks the caller ID again because that isn’t Lilly’s voice. 

“Logan?” she asks. “Are you with Lilly?”

Logan laughs. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

“What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Logan says. “In fact, I am _excellent_. Come see.”

“What…where are you?”

Logan doesn’t respond, but then from outside her house Veronica hears the short but unmistakable beep of a car horn. 

“Come see me,” he says, and the horn honks again. 

“God, Logan, it’s the middle of the night! You’re going to wake up the whole neighborhood.”

“If you don’t want me to wake up the whole neighborhood,” Logan says slowly, like he’s talking to a child, “come see me.”

Veronica sets her jaw and glares at the wall as if Logan is there to see it. 

“Fine, give me a minute. Just be quiet, okay?”

  


Her father can sleep through anything and she’d seen her mother sneak the rest of the wine bottle from dinner back to bed with her. She’s not that worried about getting caught, even with Logan honking his horn like a crazy person moments before. 

She slips out of her front door and there he is, sitting in his truck, door open and legs propped up onto the dashboard, bottle in his hand. 

“Please tell me you didn’t drive here drunk,” she says, opening the passenger door and climbing up next to him. 

“Yeah, that’s what I did,” Logan says. “I got drunk and drove to the sheriff’s house. How dumb do you think I am?”

“You are drunk.”

“I’m drunk _now_,” he says with mocking patience. “I drove here, _then_ got drunk. It’s an important distinction.”

“Yeah, the cops would love to hear that distinction right after they’re done with the breathalyzer. How long have you been sitting here getting drunk?”

Logan hums thoughtfully, then looks at his phone. 

“I don’t know. A while.”

“And _why_ are you sitting outside getting drunk?”

“Because,” Logan says, and takes another sip from the bottle. “I want to play Truth, and that’s way more fun when you’re drunk.” At her furrowed brow, he adds, “It’s like Truth or Dare, but without the dare.”

“No, I got that part. What’s going on?”

Logan laughs triumphantly, like he thinks he’s successfully tricked her into playing. 

“We’re playing Truth, that’s what’s going on. My turn. Are you aware that I’m a fucking moron?”

Normally, she would tease him, answer that of course she knows that. But now isn’t the time for that. 

“No,” she says quietly. 

“Well, you’d be the only one.” He smiles tightly at her. “Nice to know somebody holds me to a decent standard. Your turn.”

“Logan, give me the bottle.”

“No, see, that’s a dare,” he says, holding the bottle out of her reach as if he’s anticipating her grabbing at it. “You so don’t get how this game works. You forfeited your turn. My turn again. Do you know what Lilly is doing right now?”

“She’s at a party. Didn’t she tell you she was going?”

“That she did. And that it’s harder to get into a frat party if you bring your high school boyfriend. But do you know what she’s doing _right now_?”

“I guess you’re going to tell me,” she sighs, even though she kind of doesn’t want to know. 

“Well,” he looks at his phone again. “I’m guessing right now they’re finishing up the foreplay and really getting down to it.” He rolls his eyes and holds his phone up so she can see. “The girl loves to tease. This one time-“ 

“I don’t need to know that,” Veronica interrupts, but she does look at the phone, where Logan has pulled up a picture that is grainy but unmistakably Lilly, sitting on the lap of some guy, kissing him passionately. “Where did you get that? Did someone send that to you?”

“See, that’s two questions. Cheating again. Two cheaters in one night. What are the odds?”

”Just tell me,” she says, but she’s finding it harder to sound irritated in the face of his devastated face. “And stop looking at it, that’s not going to make you feel better.”

He snaps the phone closed. “To answer your questions, _cheater_, Dick sent it to me. But no, he didn’t take it. He just saw it making the rounds and decided it would be fun to keep me in the loop.”

She wants to protest, tell him Dick was probably just looking out for him, but they’ll both know that isn’t true. 

“So back to me. Should I really feel worse now that everybody has seen the proof of something we all knew anyway? That I’m a fucking moron?”

“I don’t know what you should feel,” she says quietly. At his expectant look, she finally gives in and decides to play along. “Are you going to break up with her?”

“I don’t know. I guess. I’m even more of a moron if I don’t. Did you know about this? I mean, we all knew. But did she ever tell you anything?”

“No.” It isn’t even a lie. “I think… I think she doesn’t tell me what she does when you guys are still on so I didn’t have to lie to you.”

“Plausible deniability.” He laughs. “Would you have lied to me?”

Instead of pointing out that he’s breaking his own rules, she answers honestly. “I don’t know.”

“Shit, that was two. Now I’m a cheater. Guess we’re all even.” He barks out a laugh. “Your turn.”

“Are you going to get back together with her?”

“Oh, definitely,” Logan says immediately. “I have no pride. I give it a week. So what’s it like?”

“What’s what like?”

“You know.” He gestures vaguely at her. “You two. Veronica Mars. Duncan Kane. Sheriff’s daughter and heir to a dynasty. Golden couple. Perfect.”

“We’re not perfect.”

“Right, I forgot. You argue about who’s going to hang up the phone first like every damn night.”

“You’re such a jackass sometimes,” Veronica snaps, the irritation flaring back up. “I’m going back inside, just give me your keys.”

“No, wait,” Logan says. “Shit. I’m sorry.” He looks genuinely contrite. Ashamed. “Don’t go.”

She slowly lets go of the passenger door handle. 

“You’re happy, though,” he amends. “He makes you happy. You make him happy.”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. 

“Does he ever…” Logan pauses, and Veronica grits her teeth and prepares to punch him in the arm in retaliation for a wholly inappropriate and sexual question. “Does he ever make you so happy, you, like, can’t breathe? Like you’re sitting there with him and you look at him and you think that you’re going to suffocate or something but if you died right then it would be okay because you would die so fucking happy. Like… that happy?”

Veronica thinks it might be a bad idea to answer that one truthfully, but she does, whispering, “No.”

Logan nods like he expected that, then looks down at the bottle in his hand, swishing around the liquid inside. 

“But he never makes you feel like this, either.”

It isn’t a question, but Veronica answers. “No.”

“Do you think that’s better?”

Veronica knows that she’s supposed to say yes. Yes, the stability of being with Duncan is wonderful. He makes her feel safe. He makes her feel like no matter what else happens, the two of them are constant. Unshakeable. Inevitable. 

But it seems tonight isn’t the night for white lies. 

“I don’t know.” 

He blinks at her, and for the first time since she’s been in the car looks like he’s going to cry. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t be here.”

“It’s okay.”

“No,” he says. “No, here.” He pulls the key out of the ignition and holds it out for her. “You can go back inside. I’m not going to drive, okay? I’ll just…. You go back inside.”

Veronica takes the keys, but shakes her head. “I’ll drive you home.”

“No.” She jumps at the sharp reply, and he repeats, more calmly, “No, I can’t go back there, okay? Not tonight.”

“You’re not sleeping in your car.”

He shrugs. “Done it before.”

Deciding now isn’t the time to question that, Veronica opens her car door. 

“Look, if you come inside and leave before my dad gets up at six, you’ll be safe. You really want to fall asleep out here and have him find you in the morning?”

Logan takes a breath and scrubs his hand over his face. 

“Okay,” he says. He sounds so tired. “Okay.”

  


The next morning, she successfully sneaks him out of her house. He won’t make eye contact with her the entire way down to his truck. He pulls away without a word.

  


That day at lunch, Lilly sits at one end of the table and Logan at the other. They glare at each other. Duncan sits with his arm around Veronica’s shoulder. 

Dick brings the photo up on his phone. Logan punches him in the face.

  


Three days later, Logan eats lunch with Lilly sitting on his lap. He feeds her fries with a huge smile. She smears ketchup on his cheek and licks it off. He looks like he’s so happy he can’t breathe. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why am I so obsessed with Lilly and Logan's pre-series relationship even though I love LoVe? The world may never know.


	3. Logan

Logan is actually studying for his History test because his teacher has promised to call his parents if he gets one more D (like the history he learns in 8th Grade will have any use at all after he squeaks by in the class) when his phone rings. He checks the caller ID and frowns. 

“Veronica?” he answers, a little surprised. She doesn’t usually call him and it’s kind of late anyway.

“Can you come over?” she asks, her voice hushed. “To my house. Just for a little bit. I don’t…I can’t call anyone else right now.”

And even though it isn’t too late or anything to call Lilly or Duncan, Logan decides not to question her. A good excuse for a study break would actually be really great right now.

“Okay,” he says. “I can ask my mom if she can take me but I might have to get the driver-“

“No,” she says sharply, then takes a breath and speaks again. “No, just you. Please?”

It’s a little far to go on his bike but he hears the desperation in her voice and nods to the phone.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. Just…. I’ll be there in a little while, okay?”

  


He hasn’t spent a lot of time alone with Veronica. She’s Lilly’s best friend and Duncan’s…crush, if he had to label it. Usually at least one of them is there too. As he pedals, he’s surprised to find that he’s kind of nervous. 

When he gets there, she’s sitting on her front porch, even though dusk is falling and there are lights coming from inside the house. As he brakes and jumps off his bike, he can see her better and the bright red mark on her left cheek comes into view. 

He lets go of his handlebars and doesn’t even care when the bike clatters to the ground. 

“What happened?” he asks. “Did your dad…”

But he literally cannot picture Sheriff Mars hurting his daughter, and when he looks for the distinctive police car in the driveway it isn’t there, just the old station wagon Veronica’s mom drives when she drops her off at school. 

“No!” she says quickly, hugging her knees to her chest. “No.”

Logan’s eyes flicker to the front door and before he can even think about it he’s passing Veronica on the steps to get there. He has no idea what he’s planning to do. All he knows for sure is that he’s going to do it. 

“No, don’t.” Veronica’s voice stops him in his tracks. “Look, can we just...go somewhere? Somewhere else?”

He sets his jaw, tears his eyes away from the front door, and considers this. 

“Fine,” he says. “Let’s go. Somewhere else.”

He unbuckles his bike helmet and hands it to her. 

“Come on,” he says, and she buckles the helmet securely onto her own head and hesitates. She’s seen him ride with Lilly on the back a hundred times but she’s never been willing to try, even with Duncan. “Scared, Mars?”

His voice is teasing and for just a second everything feels perfectly normal. She rolls her eyes. 

“You wish, Echolls.”

  


He doesn’t actually have a destination in mind when he starts pedaling. He takes a few random turns and eventually they hit her neighborhood’s public playground. 

It’s dark and empty, the only movement as they pull up the slight sway of the swings in the wind. 

“My mom used to take me here,” she says softly. He wonders for a second if that means she doesn’t want to stop here but she climbs off the back of the bike before he can suggest going somewhere else. 

This time he’s careful getting off his bike, setting it down gently in the grass where it won’t get scratched. She kinds of wanders away and ends up by the swingset, lowering herself onto one of the swings. He follows. 

“What happened?” he asks, and she shrugs. 

“I just needed to get out of the way. Mom’s in a really bad mood.”

“What happened?” he repeats. The mark on her cheek is almost completely faded away but her eyes are still teary and rimmed with red and he’s not going to pretend it wasn’t there. 

For a split second he feels like a total hypocrite because just a week ago she’d asked him the same question about a dark purple bruise on his arm and he’d told her it was from falling off his bike.

But he pushes that feeling away (he’s really good at pushing unnecessary feelings away, it comes with the territory) and doesn’t shift his gaze even when she does. 

“Look, it was my fault, okay?”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he grits out. 

“I knew she was having a bad day, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I was just thinking that if my dad came home and she had been drinking a lot they’d have a fight and she would have an even worse day, I wasn’t trying to tell her what to do or anything, but that was stupid, it’s not my business.”

“Veronica.”

Something in his voice makes her give in and meet his eyes. 

“It wasn’t your fault.”

She doesn’t protest but he can tell she doesn’t agree either.

“Don’t tell Duncan, okay? Or Lilly. Don’t tell anyone.”

Logan knows that a mark like that doesn’t turn into a bruise. It’s completely faded away now. Probably wasn’t a backhand. There won’t be any sign of it tomorrow. 

“It isn’t going to happen again,” she says defensively. “So you don’t have to tell anyone, okay? Not your parents. Not my dad. Promise.”

Logan wants to tell someone more than he’s ever wanted to tell anyone anything.

“Promise,” he echoes. 

“This isn’t, like...a thing,” she says. “That happens. Okay? It was just tonight because it was a bad night and I was being stupid.”

The funny thing is, Logan actually believes her. Maybe it’s because the blow wasn’t aimed with great experience in a place nobody could see. Maybe it’s because she still looks kind of shell-shocked. Maybe it’s just because he recognizes the confused look on her face and it’s the same look he saw in the mirror when he examined his bloody nose the first time Aaron ever hit him and he’d had had no idea what had just happened.

“It’s not going to happen again,” she promises firmly. 

“If it does-“

“It _won’t_.”

He acquiesces and chooses his next words carefully. 

“If it’s a bad day,” he says. “And you want to say something, call me, okay? Tell me instead. Just go to your room or something and call me and say it to me.”

He knows he’s being a hypocrite again. When he feels like saying something to Aaron, he says it. He’s not going to settle for just getting it out to another person. 

She looks like she wants to argue but doesn’t have the energy for it. 

“I will,” she says. 

“Promise.” 

“Promise.” 

The sudden ring from her pocket makes them both jump. She digs her cell phone out, checks the caller ID, and answers. 

“Hey, Dad.”

Logan swings a little and pretends he can’t hear her side of the conversation. 

“No, I’m with Logan…. Logan Echolls. You met him. No, she’s not here…. I’m really sorry, I lost track of time. I’ll be right home…. No, we have bikes. Ten minutes…. The park.”

She holds the phone away from her ear for a second and says, “I can get my dad to come get me. You don’t have to take me back.”

“It’s fine,” Logan says.

“No, really, you’re going to be home late already. Your parents will be mad.”

“It’s fine,” he repeats, and she brings the phone back to her ear. 

“It’s okay, don’t leave Mom,” she says. “Ten minutes. Yeah, I have my helmet.”

  


When he drops her off in front of her house again, the porch light is on.

“Promise you won’t tell anyone,” she repeats as she hands his helmet back. 

“Promise you’ll call me next time,” he says, buckling the helmet back onto his own head. 

“I promise,” she whispers. Impulsively, he lets go of a handlebar to reach out and squeeze her hand. 

“I promise too.”

He watches as she walks up her driveway and doesn’t ride away until she’s in the door. 

  


The next day, he finds her in front of the school. There’s nothing to see on her cheek. 

“Hi,” she says. “Um, thanks. For hanging out last night.”

“Sure,” he says. “I mean. You’re welcome. No problem.”

She looks around them then says, “This morning…she said she was sorry. She said she won’t do it again.”

The hopeful look on her face kind of kills him (though to be fair, Aaron has never once promised to not do it again so what does he know) but before he can respond he hears Lilly’s voice.

“Do what again?”

They both whirl to face her. Logan hopes they don’t look guilty. He’s been working on his poker face. Veronica doesn’t seem to have any words. 

“Her mom took away her phone for texting at the dinner table,” he says easily. “Total overreaction. Parents.”

“But, um, she gave it back this morning,” Veronica adds. “And said she wouldn’t take it away again.”

“Man,” Lilly says, shaking her head. “What I wouldn’t give to get my mom to promise that.”

  


She does call him. Usually it’s pretty late, but if he talks quietly he can’t be heard in his bedroom.

She never once uses the word “drunk.”

But _it_ never does happen again. At least, Veronica says it doesn’t, and she’s a terrible liar, so he believes her.

One time, Lilly sees his call log and asks why Veronica was calling him at one in the morning and doesn’t believe his excuse that she was freaking out because she heard they were going to have a pop quiz in Biology the next day. She doesn’t speak to him or Veronica for two weeks. 

Then he and Lilly make up without talking about it like they always do and that’s enough for Lilly to let it go with Veronica too. Logan thinks back to Veronica’s face every time Lilly ignored her and predicts that particular heartbreak might never completely heal.

Much later, when he and Veronica are firmly in nemesis territory, sometimes he lies awake and wonders if she has someone else to call in the middle of the night. Probably not. He tells himself he doesn’t care.

It’s a huge relief when her mom leaves and he doesn’t have to think about it anymore.

He wonders if she even still has his number saved in her phone.


	4. Aaron

Aaron Echolls understands violence.

He doesn’t particularly enjoy it. He’s not a psychopath, for god’s sake. But he appreciates its existence. It’s a part of life. It has a purpose.

Hell, he’d be out of a job without violence. Nobody’s going to hire an action star to save the President’s life if nobody ever tries to kill the President.

What Aaron Echolls doesn’t appreciate is senseless violence.

His father had loved senseless violence. Smacking Aaron’s mother across the face because he was drunk and his football team had lost. Burning Aaron with a cigarette because he’d accidentally woken him up the morning of a bad hangover.

Aaron watches his father and learns. He is determined to never turn into him. He enters adulthood with hard and fast rules set for himself.

Respect your family. Punish disrespect for your family. Punish only when it means something. Violence is to only be used when productive.

Never hit a woman.

Aaron is most determined to stick by that one. He’d never hated his father more than when he would hit his mother.

He only hits a woman once in his life.

Not his first wife, or his adopted daughter Trina. If anyone ever hurt Trina, he would kill them.

The only time he ever hits a woman is when he’s trying to teach his younger son Logan a lesson about respecting personal property and Logan’s mother gets in the way. The blow is actually mostly an accident. He hadn’t seen her coming and his hand had already been in motion.

She holds her cheek and looks up at him, eyes wide. He shakes his head.

“Never do that again,” he says. She nods. Behind her, Logan hugs his arms around himself like a small child.

He knows he shouldn’t play favorites with his children.

But what he’d never say out loud is that he loves Trina more, probably more than he’d loved either of his wives. She’s easy to love. She’s sweet and when she messes up she’s genuinely apologetic and she loves him back. Sometimes he thinks she’s the only one who actually appreciates everything he does for their family.

Logan isn’t like that. But he does love Logan. He really does. He wants him to grow up, sure, but that’s just as much for Logan’s sake. He’s not going to get anywhere in the real world acting like he does.

And yeah, sometimes he’s really, really hard to love.

Logan breaks the rules Aaron has always lived by, the rules he’d hoped to pass on to his son.

Respect your family? Logan embarrasses the family every chance he gets. He’s mocks Aaron’s work. He needles his sister for no reason.

Punish disrespect for your family? Sure, sometimes he stands up for his mother. But other times those friends of his look at Aaron with such disdain that he can’t believe Logan does nothing about it.

No senseless violence? He gets into fights over imagined slights against his girlfriend.

He wonders if Logan ever breaks the last rule and hits that girlfriend of his. If any woman is worth breaking that rule, it’s her.

God, he hates that girl. Every time Logan does something really stupid, she’s involved. He lets her string him along and get away with murder as long as she eventually comes back to him. It’s kind of pathetic. She’s beautiful and probably one of those girls that do the things other girls won’t in the bedroom, but god is she annoying.

He likes his other friend. Veronica. She’s just as pretty and she actually has respect for her father. All the parents love her. Except Celeste Kane, but who knows what goes on in that woman’s head.

Sometimes he wishes Celeste would succeed in breaking Veronica and her son up. Maybe then Logan would move on to her. She would be good for him. Keep him from drinking. Not bully him into breaking rules just for fun. Show him what it means to respect your father. He knows Logan likes her, sees it in the way he looks at her when none of his other friends are paying attention.

But he never does anything about it. For years he’s stuck on that Lilly.

That goddamn Lilly. When Logan isn’t around, she flirts with Aaron. She wears string bikinis around his house and looks at him with bright doe eyes.

And yeah, sometimes gets what he needs elsewhere. But he never disrespects his family when he does it. He’s never so blatant, so cruel, as that Lilly is when she disrespects Logan, disrespects the Echolls name itself, with that behavior.

Aaron knows his son isn’t stupid, that his lower grades are just another form of ridiculous rebellion.

But sometimes he wonders how things don’t get through that thick skull of his.

He thinks Aaron’s movies are terrible? How does he think Aaron paid for that hideous yellow truck of his?

He calls Trina a, what was it, a daddy’s girl? Doesn’t he see that Trina is just the only one who never feels the need to make trouble?

He looks at Aaron with accusation in his eyes every time he hands him a belt? Does he think Aaron _enjoys_ this?

Logan acts like their family is dysfunctional. Spends days at the Kane house as if those people don’t have their own problems.

Aaron wants to scream at him that the only one keeping this family from functioning is Logan himself. His attitude. His shitty behavior. His inability to grow up.

He probably would if he thought words would get through to Logan. But they don’t. Logan ignores Aaron’s words and shoots back with his own. Sometimes Aaron thinks the only noises that ever get through to him are his girlfriend’s grating voice and the crack of the belt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one felt icky to write. Hope it turned out well.


	5. Caitlin

People underestimate Caitlin Ford.

They think she’s stupid because she doesn’t get particularly good grades. They think she’s lazy because she’d rather spend her class time having fun than doing pointless work.

But they’re wrong. As far as Caitlin is concerned, she’s the one who has it all figured out.

Because Caitlin knows what she wants. She knows what she needs. And the rest is bullshit. She has no reason to worry about bullshit.

She wants Logan Echolls? She has him.

She needs a copy of her dad’s platinum card to keep her wardrobe and beauty treatments up-to-date so she can keep Logan Echolls? She has that.

She needs every boy in school to want her and Logan Echolls to know it? She definitely has that.

Of course, her relationship with Logan is also kind of bullshit, but it’s bullshit with a purpose.

He gets the hottest girl in school both in his bedroom and on his arm.

She gets to be the girlfriend of the son of action star Aaron Echolls. She gets to spend afternoons lounging around Aaron Echolls’ pool. Hell, she gets to order Aaron Echolls’s housekeeper around like she owns the place.

She knows it’s bullshit. He knows it’s bullshit. But it works.

No, he doesn’t have the desperate need to seek her approval the way he did for Lilly. Whatever hell they rained on each other, Logan and Lilly loved each other. He probably still loves her.

Caitlin doesn’t particularly care. It’s not like the person you rebound from your brutally murdered girlfriend with is supposed to be your soul mate. And it’s not like Lilly is coming back to claim him away. She’s not going to one day appear at school and bat her eyelashes until he follows her around like a puppy again. Besides, there are plenty of other guys Logan never has to know about who have nothing else but are perfectly happy to give her their love and devotion.

Caitlin has what she needs.

There’s only one person in Caitlin’s life who refuses to fall into place.

Veronica Mars.

It isn’t even completely Veronica’s fault. Because Veronica is bitchy and snide and sticks her nose where it doesn’t belong, but that shouldn’t matter. Caitlin doesn’t need to care about Veronica Mars or her opinions and remarks and general bitchiness.

However, Logan doesn’t need to care either. But he _does_, and it’s infuriating.

He’s supposed to be indifferent. Maybe bully her back into line when she steps too far out, but not _care_.

He’s not supposed to stare at Veronica from the lunch table even when she’s not looking back. He’s not supposed to pause in unbuttoning Caitlin’s shirt to whine about something she said in class the other day. He's really not supposed to talk about how that new kid is only hanging out with Veronica because he hasn’t heard yet about what a skank she is but he guesses that he’s just going to hit it and quit it anyway because actually dating Veronica Mars would be hell on Earth.

One afternoon they’re on his couch and they’re supposedly watching a movie but he’s got his hands under her shirt within the first ten minutes.

Then he breaks away from where he was kissing her neck and says, “Can you believe she transferred into newspaper? Just because she got tired of stalking Duncan from a distance. It’s pathetic.”

Caitlin huffs and sits up, jerking his hands away from her body.

“Who _cares_?” she snaps. “Why do you even care that she’s in class with us?”

“I don’t care,” he says defensively. “I just think it’s creepy.”

“You know what else is creepy? How you obsess over her. God, you look at her more than Duncan and he’s the one who used to be in love with her or whatever. “

Logan snorts. “I’m sorry, are you actually _jealous _of her?”

“I’m just tired of talking about her. It’s like being obsessed with her is the closest you can get to being obsessed with Lilly again!”

Silence falls between them. If there’s one unspoken rule in their relationship, it’s that neither of them is to mention Lilly. Ever.

“You know what? Fuck you,” he spits after a few long seconds.

“Whatever,” Caitlin retorts, standing up and straightening her shirt. “I’m getting out of here. Why don’t you go on upstairs and get your feelings journal and write down everything Veronica did today? I couldn’t tell you what she ate for lunch but I’m sure you know.”

He glares at her as she picks up her purse and stalks out.

That night, she calls Chardo. He’s kind of pathetic too, but at least Caitlin is actually the one stringing him around.

She and Logan never talk about what she said. The next time she sees him in the school courtyard, he catches her eye and jerks his head towards the empty seat next to him. She rolls her eyes but obeys, and when she sits he turns her head for her and kisses her long enough that their friends start catcalling them. When he pulls away he grins.

“Looking good today, babe.”

Caitlin smiles back and pretends not to notice when his eyes quickly flicker away towards Veronica’s table to check on her like they do fifty times a day. She’s starting to suspect he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

She pulls his arm around herself and leans into his body, glancing down at the diamond pendant resting on her chest, the one Chardo had bought with Logan’s parents’ credit.

“Thanks, babe,” she says.

**Author's Note:**

> I guess I'm going to put all the randomly inspired fics I write here. Wish me luck.


End file.
